Not a damned thing other than the topic itself; because you set up senarios in a beg to question of seemingly unwinnable circumstances no matter the
position to only suit your position...

I instead spoke to the topic and what actually occurs in action; on the whole from the practice... situational dilemmas aside... which make for
splitting hairs.

If you want to live in an authoritarian world of dictation and control? Embrace morality to one's hearts content... better have been born a machine in
such circumstances, because that's what it turns into over time a mechanical society... despite the lie that it is for a greater good... the idea of a
greater good is an ideology that makes all atrocity sanctioned.

A Pope sanctioned or basically legalized slavery; which is how it ended up in the "new world" to begin with for the greater moral good then King
George and his rainbow cabinet basically legalized murder for the greater moral good. Expansion and genocide has always carried self appointed
sanctions as a greater moral good.

Morals is a high horse that only wishes to reign and the only thing it seeks is control... there's nothing good in it; that's just the excuse that
allows or sanctions for such things they want to do anyway.

Our made up blah blah gives us the authority to do blah blah to you because you don't believe in the same made up blah blah won't fall down worship or
bend a knee to made up blah blah won't accept our made up blah blah as an authority over you.

Nonsense; conscience has nothing to do with morality. It has to do with attachment; one weighs a situation based on reward; if they even weight it at
all...

Why? Because unconscionable is equated with the unthinkable; meaning the situation was not weighed before hand... unless premeditated and whomever
thought the reward was worth the risk or thought the outcome was worth whatever punishment would come from whomever would sit and judge them for the
action.

Nothing I do ever comes from a moral ground; it arises from a personal standard... I dont like making my life more complicated than need be and value
my freedom to act as I see fit... and it is always based on my personal standard of living... no one else's, although it may mirror or coincide with
some other peoples standards? Still my own.

If people look honestly at themselves beyond wishful thinking or pretend time in reality? They live the exact same damned way...

Moral relativism is the only type of morality that has ever existed, or that will ever exist. It is the only type of morality humans are capable of.
Even those who rely on an ancient holy book to dictate their morality will note that different eras have drawn wildly different conclusions about the
morality of certain acts -- the book doesn't change, but interpretations do.

Strictly speaking, human morality has its origins in evolutionary biology. This can be seen in research done on the morality of great apes (yes, such
a thing exists) as they exhibit many of the tendencies of man.

Human beings rely on others for their survival. As such, behaviors which threaten the group will tend to be treated as immoral, while those that
strengthen the group will tend to be treated as moral. The closer a behavior comes to being a universal threat to society, the closer it comes to
being an ABSOLUTE moral.

For example, the murder of an innocent within our own group is probably the closest thing humans have to a universal moral negative.

What Hitler did is morally wrong by any definition.

When a moral relativist says Hitler was evil, he's not saying, "I don't like Hitler." He's saying Hitler is an evil bastard. He's merely acknowledging
the universal reality that morality is always weighed against the era.

Action equals effect... some effects wanted some effects not wanted; in such a manner behavior becomes habit.

Moral has nothing to do with it... the outcome or reward to act or not for a desired effect however does and it can become habitual with no thought
behind it.

The monkey in the cage experiment was duplicated in humans not long ago and the human subjects behaved the same way... monkey see monkey do but monkey
doesn't ask why after while it just does. At such a point it eventually becomes pathological; and then when it becomes pathological in the majority of
the group as a habit, it becomes a standard or normal baseline... to hold other accountible too, whether ignorant of those standards held or not; they
will still be expected to carry them out just the same as if they had known them. But they don't question those expectations... just follow them out
of those very expectations of monkey see monkey do.

Morals are an excuse to judge others that all it is... it's an expectational standard not a realistic one.

Action equals effect... some effects wanted some effects not wanted; in such a manner behavior becomes habit.

Moral has nothing to do with it... the outcome or reward to act or not for a desired effect however does and it can become habitual with no thought
behind it.

The monkey in the cage experiment was duplicated in humans not long ago and the human subjects behaved the same way... monkey see monkey do but monkey
doesn't ask why after while it just does. At such a point it eventually becomes pathological; and then when it becomes pathological in the majority of
the group as a habit, it becomes a standard or normal baseline... to hold other accountible too, whether ignorant of those standards held or not; they
will still be expected to carry them out just the same as if they had known them. But they don't question those expectations... just follow them out
of those very expectations of monkey see monkey do.

Morals are an excuse to judge others that all it is... it's an expectational standard not a realistic one

You seem to have some sort of problem with the word "moral" or "morality."

It is merely a word that describes a system of determining what behaviors are found to be acceptable within a society, and which are not. While there
are as many reasons to judge as there are stars in the sky, the roots of human morality are biological and center around the survivability of the
individual and the group.

It has always been, and will always be, relative -- because the behaviors that truly pose a threat to the collective can and do change over time.

It's an empty concept it isn't even real... it's a make believe label of expectation of behavior given some arising circumstance to behave in a
certain way. It's pavlovian in total; training, and expectation to behave or act to those expectations... salivate when I ring this bell; reward or
not.

Monkeys display morals... ludacris. They have a reward for doing that's why they do it. Cut a monkeys finger off and re-introduce it... guess what
monekys will do? Tear it limb from limb because that monkey is different... that's their nature; we thinking we are above animals do the same damned
thing but we make up words like morals to excuse the behavior.

So societies do not make value judgments about what behavior is or isn't acceptable?

it's a make believe label of expectation of behavior given some arising circumstance to behave in a certain way. It's pavlovian in total; training,
and expectation to behave or act to those expectations... salivate when I ring this bell; reward or not.

You're confused.

Monkeys display morals... ludacris.

At no point have I mentioned monkeys, although the article below mentions them. I mentioned great apes.

Here is an article discussing a tiny fraction of the research that has been done on the evolutionary origins of morality:
www.nytimes.com...

I had a (troubling) moment many years ago, when the relative nature of ethics hit me.

It was provoked by my moving to another culture, and took a while to become clear. I had to learn the language first, which took years, and then more
years to understand the underlying mentality behind that which people say around me.

Many morals and ethics I took for granted as "universal" became exposed as nothing of the sort. Not only did they cease to be valid in the minds of
the society I found myself in, but they really ceased to have a logical sense in a practical terms- because they don't work the same way in a
different system.

Just as taking the correct piece of one kind of machinery, and trying to fit it into another type of machinery makes it no longer "the correct
piece".

This was scary to realize. It felt very insecure. But as I began to change my vocabulary from "this is wrong" to "this is not my preference" it became
easier and easier to look at things in a wider way- to study events or actions within their context. I also became convinced that this weans the
conscious mind off the habit and addiction to following what is dictated to me by others.

There are some things we will all find in common in our biology- like the desire to survive- which will cause to share certain preferences. But even
those cannot make for a universal moral. When a person is dying of cancer, in great pain, they might cease to share that preference with the majority,
and what is right for us is no longer right for them.

It is in turning within, and owning our preferences, rather than looking without to learn them, that (paradoxially) we tend to find more of those
"almost universal" morals.

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
Without the understanding provided by the existence of a competing category, a person would not be able to understand what it is that is meant when an
action is assigned to the category, even in principle. In other words, the claim that an action is not a moral issue is meaningful if and only if
moral issues do actually exist.

I like where you're trying to go with your informal proof, but this falls apart because you are asserting two things (P & Q) are empirically the same
making it impossible to distinguish a difference. Let's take something easy to understand like a contradiction. A contradiction is false. Therefore
working off this precept that a contradiction isn't possible it should not be conceivable, like amorality having no difference from morality if moral
skepticism is true, right? Well I can say a seat is not a
seat like Sartre did in Nausea and actually derive a meaning from this. The technical jargon for this is dialetheism. This is a great thought
exercise though and I wholeheartedly hope you keep at it because I believe moral relativism is more a statement that there is no tautological
truth amongst the universal set, which comes across as ludicrous on the face of it when you consider a tautology is what gives us equality in the
first place.

I had not at any point mentioned MONKEYS until my last post. I edited my last post after I realized the article in question did, in fact, mention
monkeys.

My original statement was about Great Apes. That was not edited.

Here is what the article I posted says about Great Apes and the evolution of human morality:

He found that consolation was universal among the great apes but generally absent from monkeys — among macaques, mothers will not even reassure an
injured infant. To console another, Dr. de Waal argues, requires empathy and a level of self-awareness that only apes and humans seem to possess. And
consideration of empathy quickly led him to explore the conditions for morality.

Though human morality may end in notions of rights and justice and fine ethical distinctions, it begins, Dr. de Waal says, in concern for others and
the understanding of social rules as to how they should be treated. At this lower level, primatologists have shown, there is what they consider to be
a sizable overlap between the behavior of people and other social primates.

Social living requires empathy, which is especially evident in chimpanzees, as well as ways of bringing internal hostilities to an end. Every species
of ape and monkey has its own protocol for reconciliation after fights, Dr. de Waal has found. If two males fail to make up, female chimpanzees will
often bring the rivals together, as if sensing that discord makes their community worse off and more vulnerable to attack by neighbors. Or they will
head off a fight by taking stones out of the males’ hands.

Dr. de Waal believes that these actions are undertaken for the greater good of the community, as distinct from person-to-person relationships, and are
a significant precursor of morality in human societies.

I'm done here. GFY.

That's probably for the best if you're only means of discussion involves violating the T&C.

How about ignoring me as a focus and read the two posters above your last... they are pointing directly to the fallacy.

You can lie and twist all you want too; you did say monkeys making this into a you said I said is pointless... you knew it was a stupid argument
saying monkeys had morals not wanting to lose the debate you went back and edited...

How "moral" of you... if you are going to argue a case for morals? Display some.

Since you failed too? You automatically upheld my argument that such a thing is a fallacy... so what is there left to debate with you...

If you'd like to be ignored, your surest means of success is to stop typing.

You can lie and twist all you want too; you did say monkeys

The word "monkeys" has appeared in none of my posts except the last one, where I acknowledged that the article from the NYTimes that I had cited did
in fact mention monkeys.

My point was about Great Apes. Great Apes were the only animal mentioned in the post where you apparently thought I'd mentioned monkeys.

And why would I "lie and twist" to get out of admitting I was talking about monkeys? If I was talking about monkeys, I'd own it. There are in fact
examples I could cite from sociological studies of monkey societies. In fact, at least one of those is mentioned in the article I posted.

How "moral" of you... if you are going to argue a case for morals? Display some.

Nothing that has happened here is immoral. I think you've been rude telling me to GFM, but I wouldn't call that immoral, as it scarcely has any impact
whatsoever on the survivability of either of us or society as a whole, not in this fine technological age.

I did not read your link about stupid monkeys having "morals"... I read your intro to the article of YOU agreeing with the article saying they did in
your own words setting it up... however you went back and snipped out what you wrote about them. Because they DONT have it; it is a MADE up CONCEPT
like GOD the DEVIL and other make believe of human mental illness labeling any and everything like it is a real thing and not make beleive that only
fools believe to be real and then spout on about it; like it even matters...

Example:

The sun still suns, regardless of what we think or create or conspire to agree about it... I could say 12123.3332* 232 equals the sun and what makes
the sun sun I could call the sun kitty kitty pow pow and it won't make any difference... the sun still suns and has sunned and will continue to sun
until it is no more... regardless of anything that was, is or ever will be... that you or I, we or anyone that has existed or will ever exist... could
ever say or invent, create or believe about the sun.

All of everything is exacly the same way.

There's your to the primer on reality... against all the rote grasping nonsense aside that you've accepted as reality; truth and knowledge.

I did not read your link about stupid monkeys having "morals"... I read your intro to the article of YOU agreeing with the article saying they did in
your own words setting it up... however you went back and snipped out what you wrote about them. Because they DONT have it; it is a MADE up CONCEPT
like GOD the DEVIL and other make believe of human mental illness labeling any and everything like it is a real thing and not make beleive that only
fools believe to be real and then spout on about it; like it even matters...

Example:

The sun still suns, regardless of what we think or create or conspire to agree about it... I could say 12123.3332* 232 equals the sun and what makes
the sun sun I could call the sun kitty kitty pow pow and it won't make any difference... the sun still suns and has sunned and will continue to sun
until it is no more... regardless of anything that was, is or ever will be... that you or I, we or anyone that has existed or will ever exist... could
ever say or invent, create or believe about the sun.

All of everything is exacly the same way.

There's your to the primer on reality... against all the rote grasping nonsense aside that you've accepted as reality; truth and knowledge.

Who do you think you are fooling here? Only you.

I repeat: I never said a thing about monkeys until that last post (although at this point it's several posts ago). You accused me of mentioning
monkeys long before I ever mentioned them. My point was then and is now about Great Apes.

If you want to talk so badly about monkeys, by all means make a point about them and we can discuss it.

However, if you'd like to read some more about the evolutionary basis of morality, here is another fine article dealing with the Chimpanzee and the
Bonobo.

Humans are the dumbest life form on this entire planet; only because they think they know something when they don't... yet the fact that they can
realize that they don't know a god-damned thing? Is the only redeeming quality that they have.

On the contrary, human beings have the most advanced cognitive abilities on the planet, as evidenced by their ability to use language, mathematics,
technology, medicine. Recent research has shown that other animals (in particular the porpoise family) may be capable of feeling emotions more
powerfully than humans, and they also demonstrate an ability to use language. So we're not the only smart animals. We're just the smartest. Of course,
this requires an admittedly human-centric view of what intelligence is, so one could argue the deck is stacked. Still, the argument that humans are
the dumbest life form on the entire planet would require a very non-traditional definition of intelligence.

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